Attenborough, 91, said in the series: “Unless the flow of plastics into the world’s oceans is reduced, marine life will be poisoned by them for many centuries to come.”

You might also like:

Louise Edge, senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “The BBC is already a bit of a hero amongst those of us worried about the millions of tonnes of plastic entering our oceans every year, as the Blue Planet II series did as much to raise awareness of this issue as years of campaigning.

“But awareness-raising is only step one, so it’s really encouraging to see the BBC moving on to taking action.”

In January, Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to eradicate all avoidable plastic waste in the UK by 2042.

The commitment is part of the government’s 25-year plan to improve the natural environment.

Related Articles

Image copyright Bas van de Schootbrugge Image caption One of the scales under the microscope Newly discovered fossils show that moths and butterflies have been on the planet for at least 200 million years. Scientists found fossilised butterfly scales the size of a speck of dust inside ancient rock from Germany. The find pushes back […]

Image copyright Tim Peake/Nasa/ESA Image caption The crater is buried partly offshore and partly onshore, under Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula The crater made by the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs is revealing clues to the origins of life on Earth. Scientists have drilled into the 200km-wide Chicxulub crater now buried under the Gulf of Mexico. […]

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media captionAn animation depicts changes in atmospheric CO2 through the year A Nasa satellite has provided remarkable new insights on how CO2 is moved through the Earth’s atmosphere. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) tracked the behaviour of the gas in 2015/2016 – a period when the planet experienced […]